1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a lens hood attached to the front of a lens to prevent unnecessary light from being incident upon the lens, and an imaging device provided with the lens hood.
This application claims the priority of the Japanese Patent Application No. 2003-180022 filed on Jun. 24, 2003, the entirety of which is incorporated by reference herein.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a lens hood is attached to the front of a lens in an imaging device such as a still camera, video camera or the like, as necessary, to prevent unnecessary light from being incident upon the lens during photography (cf. the Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 2000-180918). Also, a lens cover is attached to the camera device after completion of an intended series of photography to protect the lens so that the lens will not be damaged or no dust or the like will adhere to the lens surface (cf. the Japanese Published Unexamined Patent Application No. 1992-94271).
FIG. 1 shows a conventional camera/video recorder (will be referred to as “video camera” hereunder), for example. The video camera is generally indicated with a reference 200. As shown, the video camera 200 includes a body unit 201, a lens unit 202 provided at the front of the body unit 201 with a field lens included in the lens unit 202, facing forward, and a viewfinder 203 provided at the rear top of the body unit 201 and facing backward (in a direction opposite to that of the field lens in the lens unit 202). Gripping a holder 204 provided at one lateral side of the body unit 201, the photographer (will be referred to as “user” hereunder) peeps into the viewfinder 203 to see a field of view the video camera is going to capture. A lens hood 205 is attached to the front of the lens unit 202, and further a lens cover 206 is removably attached to the lens hood 205.
Attaching and detaching of the lens cover to the lens hood before and after making a photography with the aforementioned camera device are very troublesome. Especially, in the case of the video camera 200, it is difficult for the user to detach the lens cover 206 from the front of the lens hood 205 with the eye being set to the viewfinder 203 while holding the holder 204 of the body unit 201 by gripping. So, to attach or detach the lens cover 206, the user has to re-hold the video camera 200 once to direct the lens hood 205 toward himself or herself. Also, making sure whether the lens cover 206 is attached in place as well as re-holding the video camera 200 is very troublesome.
Also, in the case of the video camera 200, the lens cover 206 is connected to the body unit 201 with a string 207 to prevent the detached lens cover 206 from being missing, as shown in FIG. 1. However, the lens cover 206 detached for making a photography will depend from the body unit 201, which will interfere with and bother the user.
On the other hand, some of small camera devices using a small lens include a camera whose lens cover is automatically slid to a position outside the lens and a camera whose lens cover is opened to outside. In a conventional camera of a type whose lens unit is projected largely forward, like the lens unit 202 in the video camera 200, and a conventional camera of a type whose lens hood is to be attached to the front of the camera, like the lens hood 205 of the video camera 200, however, there is not provided any mechanism to operate (open and close) a lens cover (like the lens cover 206) because such a mechanism will lead to a larger front portion of the camera. Most of the conventional camera devices of such types have a lens cover (like the lens cover 206) that is to be attached and detached at each time of photography, which is very inconvenient.